Nicholas P. Allan

Examining the Dimensionality of Effortful Control in Preschool Children and Its Relation to Academic and Socioemotional Indicators.

Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct, associated with socioemotional growth, academic performance, and psychopathology. EC is defined as the ability to execute goal-directed behavior to inhibit or delay a prepotent response in favor of a subdominant response. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional. Confirmatory factor analysis with a sample of 234 preschoolers was used to determine if tasks designed to measure EC were best described by hot (affectively salient) and cool (affectively neutral) dimensions or by a single factor. Analyses revealed that EC is best described by a single factor, even when variance associated with childrens language skills was removed. This EC factor was strongly related to measures of academic performance and significantly less related to measures of socioemotional development.

Randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of a brief intervention targeting anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns.

OBJECTIVE Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a well-established, malleable risk factor for anxiety and other forms of psychopathology. Structural evaluation models of AS suggest it can be decomposed into physical, social, and cognitive concerns, and emerging work indicates that these components may be differentially related to various adverse outcomes. In particular, AS cognitive concerns have been consistently linked with suicide. Prior work has also shown that brief interventions can effectively reduce overall AS, but these treatments tend to focus on its physical subcomponent. The aim of the current investigation was to design and evaluate the efficacy of an AS treatment more specifically focused on its cognitive component. METHOD Non-treatment-seeking participants (N = 108) with elevated AS were randomly assigned to a 1-session intervention utilizing psychoeducation and interoceptive exposure techniques to target AS or a health information control intervention and assessed posttreatment and at 1-month follow-up. RESULTS The active treatment condition produced significantly greater reductions in AS at posttreatment. Group differences persisted at 1-month follow-up that were specific to AS cognitive concerns. Moreover, changes in cognitive AS mediated symptom change at follow-up including suicide outcomes. CONCLUSIONS Despite the brevity of the treatment intervention, findings demonstrate that it resulted in substantial reductions in AS cognitive concerns that were linked with symptom improvement.

Relations between Inhibitory Control and the Development of Academic Skills in Preschool and Kindergarten: A Meta-Analysis.

Although there is evidence that young childrens inhibitory control (IC) is related to their academic skills, the nature of this relation and the role of potential moderators of it are not well understood. In this meta-analytic study, we summarized results from 75 peer-reviewed studies of preschool and kindergarten children (14,424 children; 32-80 months old [M = 54.71 months; SD = 9.70]) across a wide range of socioeconomic status. The mean effect size (r) across studies was .27 (95% confidence interval [.24, .29]), indicating a moderate and statistically significant association between self-regulation and academic skills. The association between IC and academic skills was moderated by type of IC behavior task (i.e., hot vs. cool behavior task), by method of assessing IC (i.e., behavior task vs. parent report), and by academic subject (i.e., literacy vs. math), but not by other methods of assessing IC (i.e., behavior task vs. teacher report, parent report vs. teacher report) or by grade (i.e., preschool vs. kindergarten). The results of this meta-analysis suggest that there are preferred methods for assessing IC (i.e., cool behavior tasks, teacher reports) that should be considered when examining the relations between IC and academic skills in young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Evaluation of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 among Treatment-Seeking Smokers

The Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3; Taylor et al., 2007) is a self-report assessment of anxiety sensitivity, reflecting an individuals tendency to misinterpret the meaning of anxiety-relevant sensations. Despite this construct being related to a wide array of clinically significant smoking maintenance and relapse processes, the psychometric properties of scores on the ASI-3 have not yet been investigated for use among smokers. Therefore, the current study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the scores on the ASI-3 in a sample of cigarette smokers. Participants were treatment-seeking daily smokers who completed the ASI-3 at a precessation visit (Time 1, N = 464) and 3 months postcessation attempt (Time 2, n = 137). Confirmatory factor analyses results of the scores on ASI-3 at Time 1 and Time 2 revealed the hypothesized 3-factor model, including physical, social, and cognitive concerns. In addition, the ASI-3 factor scores evidenced factor stability, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and convergent, and discriminant, and predictive validity. The present study provides evidence in support of the validity and reliability of scores on the ASI-3 as a measure of anxiety sensitivity among treatment-seeking cigarette smokers.

Unique relations among anxiety sensitivity factors and anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is composed of three lower-order dimensions, cognitive concerns, physical concerns, and social concerns. We examined the relations between AS dimensions using a more adequate assessment of subscales (ASI-3) than has previously been used, and measures of anxiety and mood disorders as well as suicidal ideation in a sample of 256 (M age = 37.10 years, SD = 16.40) treatment-seeking individuals using structural equation modeling. AS cognitive concerns was uniquely associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), major depressive disorder (MDD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal ideation. AS physical concerns was uniquely associated with OCD, social anxiety disorder (SAD), panic disorder (PD), and specific phobia. AS social concerns was uniquely associated with SAD, GAD, OCD, and MDD. These results highlight the importance of considering the lower-order AS dimensions when examining the relations between AS and psychopathology.

Exploring dimensionality of effortful control using hot and cool tasks in a sample of preschool children.

Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct associated with academic performance, socioemotional growth, and psychopathology. EC, defined as the ability to inhibit or delay a prepotent response typically in favor of a subdominant response, undergoes rapid development during childrens preschool years. Research involving EC in preschool children can be aided by ensuring that the measured model of EC matches the latent structure of EC. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional, consisting of hot (affectively salient) and cool (affectively neutral) dimensions. However, there are several untested assumptions regarding the defining features of hot EC. Confirmatory factor analysis was used in a sample of 281 preschool children (Mage=55.92months, SD=4.16; 46.6% male and 53.4% female) to compare a multidimensional model composed of hot and cool EC factors with a unidimensional model. Hot tasks were created by adding affective salience to cool tasks so that hot and cool tasks varied only by this aspect of the tasks. Tasks measuring EC were best described by a single factor and not distinct hot and cool factors, indicating that affective salience alone does not differentiate between hot and cool EC. EC shared gender-invariant associations with academic skills and externalizing behavior problems.

Direct and Interactive Effects of Distress Tolerance and Anxiety Sensitivity on Generalized Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance are both hypothesized risk factors for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unclear whether these factors synergistically influence GAD and MDD and related symptoms. Using latent variable methods, direct and interactive relations between anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance with worry and depressive symptoms and with GAD and MDD diagnoses were examined in 347 outpatients. Interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance were found for worry and GAD/MDD. The interactions generally suggested that anxiety sensitivity confers a greater risk for worry and GAD/MDD at higher levels of distress tolerance, and that distress tolerance confers a greater risk for worry and GAD/MDD at lower levels of anxiety sensitivity. Given the interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance for GAD/MDD, interventions targeting both risk factors may prove more efficacious than targeting each individually.

Negative Affect Shares Genetic and Environmental Influences with Symptoms of Childhood Internalizing and Externalizing Disorders.

The co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing disorders suggests that they may have common underlying vulnerability factors. Research has shown that negative affect is moderately positively correlated with both internalizing and externalizing disorders in children. The present study is the first to provide an examination of negative affect in relation to a wide spectrum of childhood internalizing and externalizing problems using a biometric model. This study extends prior findings of more narrowly focused associations by using a factor approach including multiple disorders. The sample for this study included families of 691 same-sex 7- to 13-year old twin pairs. A multifactorial independent pathway model was used to examine the genetic and environmental influences underlying the covariation of parent-reported negative affect, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms. Results of the current study suggest that negative affect shares genetic and environmental influences with both internalizing and externalizing disorders in childhood. These common influences may partially explain their comorbidity. Understanding that negative affect is at least one contributor to the covariation among these disorders may highlight avenues for early risk assessment, intervention, and perhaps prevention.

The depression distress amplification model in adolescents: A longitudinal examination of anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns, depression and suicidal ideation

Adolescents with comorbid anxiety and depression are at significantly increased risk of suicide. The recently proposed depression distress amplification model appears to have promise for explaining the relations between anxiety, depression, and suicidality, but it has not been tested in adolescents. Participants were 524 adolescents followed over two years. Baseline data for the current report were collected by trained interviewers while the adolescents were in eighth grade. Data were obtained in the same manner when the adolescents were in tenth grade. Baseline anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns significantly predicted suicidal ideation two years later, above and beyond baseline suicidal ideation and depression. Further, consistent with the depression distress amplification model, anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns interacted with depressive symptoms to predict suicidal ideation. This report extends the empirical and theoretical support for a relationship between anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns and suicidality.

A randomized clinical trial targeting anxiety sensitivity for patients with suicidal ideation.

Objective: Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a well-established transdiagnostic risk factor for anxiety and mood psychopathology including suicide. A variety of interventions using cognitive–behavioral skills as well as cognitive bias modification (CBM) suggest that AS can be quickly and effectively reduced in nonclinical and nontreatment seeking samples. However, it is unclear whether AS reduction protocols will have efficacy for more severe clinical samples. Moreover, the combination of cognitive–behavioral techniques with CBM focused on changing interpretation bias (CBM-I) related to AS has not been evaluated. Method: A patient sample with co-occurring anxiety psychopathology and active suicidal ideation (N = 74) was randomly assigned to a brief 1-session computerized treatment including: (a) psychoeducation and interoceptive exposure (i.e., cognitive anxiety sensitivity treatment [CAST]) plus CBM-I for AS; or (b) health information condition plus sham CBM for AS. Participants were assessed immediately after the 1-hr intervention as well as at 1- and 4-month follow-ups. Results: Consistent with hypotheses, participants in the active treatment showed significantly greater AS reduction that was maintained through follow-up (effect sizes ranged from medium to large for the overall AS and the AS subscales). Mediation analyses suggested that changes in AS mediated suicide outcomes. Conclusions: In sum, these are the first findings to suggest that brief AS reduction protocols have efficacy both in terms of risk and symptom outcomes in patient samples showing active suicidal ideation.